Commerce and Government : Considered in Their Mutual Relationship . by Étienne Bonnot , Abbé

With the publication of Murray N. Rothbard’s monumental work An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought in 1995, contemporary Austrian economists have become aware that they are the modern heirs to a grand intellectual tradition. The first fruit of further research in the Austrian tradition was 15 Great Austrian Economists, a small volume edited by Randall G. Holcombe in 1999. In the meantime, some predecessors of modern Austrian economics have received more attention. This is the case with Richard Cantillon and, most notably, with Frédéric Bastiat whose bicentenary was celebrated in 2001. By contrast, three major figures have so far been unduly neglected: Friedrich von Wieser (1851–1926), Richard von Strigl (1891–1942), and Étienne de Condillac (1714–1780). In the case of the latter two, their pioneering works in economics have only very recently been translated into English and have not yet penetrated the contemporary communities most akin to their messages.1 This holds true in particular for Condillac’s Commerce and Government, a work that is indeed nothing less than one of the great milestones in the history of economic science and on equal footing with the works of Cantillon, Say, and Bastiat.2 The ideas contained in this book not only have a strong affinity with Austrian economics, but they also had a considerable and direct impact on the development of Menger’s thought. Menger acknowledged this influence in his